A HOMELESS man living in a tent has vowed to keep returning every time he is moved on.

Tents returned to Hove Lawns at the weekend after being previously served notices ordering them to move by Brighton and Hove City Council.

Jake Linden, 44, is one of those living in a tent.

He said he had previously been camping on the lawns and moved on, but had come back as he had no alternative.

He said: “I have just got out of hospital because I took all of my pills.

“I am not very well at all but I have no where else to go.

“If the council want to move us on we’ll have to go take our tents and put them somewhere else.

“Then when they move us from there we’ll come back here. We’ll just keep coming back. It’s just a merry go round because there is nowhere else for us to live.”

Jake who is originally from London said he had been in his tent on the seafront for three days after a falling out with his brother.

He said: “All I need at the moment is to be able to get some rest and not be moved on.”

Jake had pitched his tent in an inconspicuous corner.

There was no litter and families enjoying the lawns seemed unperturbed by his sleeping arrangements.

A council spokesman said: “We are aware of the tents and are visiting the area to assess the situation and take any necessary action, including serving notices.

“If the current occupants were resident at the time of the recent possession order we can apply to the court to enable a faster response than if the occupants are new to the site. If the occupants are new to the site we will have to serve notices and apply to the court as before.

“We are trying to ensure that all who need accommodation are assisted and we are looking at ways we can offer more help to reduce the crisis that we can all see more visibly as a result of the tent encampments.

“Our commissioned Street Outreach Service are proactively outreaching the site to offer support to those people sleeping rough to try and resolve their housing need.

“We have worked hard over the last two years to attract additional grant funding from central Government to increase the housing options available to people who are or are at risk of rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove. Despite this, at present hostels are often full and many of the people sleeping rough in the city are waiting for accommodation to become available.

“To address this, we have committed funds and put a lot of work into finding a building for a night shelter, which will open 365 days a year. Expression of interests went out this summer asking for organisations to let us know if they’d be interested in running it.”